


A Pegasus in the Pegasus Galaxy

by jacquelee



Series: Writer's Month 2020 [2]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Stargate Atlantis Setting, Gen, based on the Stargate Atlantis episode Quarantine, just fluff and fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25689136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquelee/pseuds/jacquelee
Summary: Zari, Mona and Charlie are trying to find a way to reach the control room amidst a lockdown caused by a malfunctioning computer program. Thankfully, Charlie can shapeshift into just about anything.
Relationships: Charlie & Mona Wu, Charlie & Zari Tomaz | Zari Tarazi, Zari Tomaz | Zari Tarazi & Mona Wu
Series: Writer's Month 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861585
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	A Pegasus in the Pegasus Galaxy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Writer's Month 2020](https://writersmonth.tumblr.com) for the Day 2 prompt Quarantine.
> 
> Part of a Legends AU in a Stargate / Stargate Atlantis setting that I will eventually write more of. Probably.
> 
> Thanks to facethestrange for giving me the idea of a Pegasus, which was very cool, cause, well, a Pegasus in the Pegasus galaxy, hehe. :D

It had only been a few minutes, but Zari was already getting antsy. Mona and Charlie knew she was claustrophobic, all of her friends did, and she was happy that there was a computer at least, so she could distract herself from the lockdown currently happening. 

Charlie, Mona and her had been meeting in her room just to discuss some things, without expecting anything to go wrong. But of course, here in Atlantis, that was never a given. And sure enough, suddenly the quarantine alarm had started blaring – though it thankfully cut out immediately afterwards – and all the doors closed, according to Zari's quick assessment of the situation, this meant that the computer had detected some kind of unknown contagion and was sealing the city to protect the inhabitants. 

Which was a good thing, in theory. In practice, Zari very quickly realized upon looking some things up on her computer that this new system she had designed was not the best way to do these things after all. She had assumed that in the event that the city was subject to a contagion, she would be in the control room and be able to track and, well, control everything from there. 

There was a theoretical possibility to access all programs from anywhere in the city, but apparently, she had been a little overzealous and instead of just cutting off airflow throughout the city, isolating every room so that there was no way for a contagion to spread, she had also cut off any access to the program itself from anywhere but the main computer in the control room.

She made a mental note to write a subroutine correcting that error as soon as they got out of here, but that left her with having to think about her current predicament: how to get out of here. Her room was in no way small, she actually always thought it was quite spacious, the Ancients definitely were generous with space, but then, this city was enormous, they didn't have to hold back. Except now, the walls seemed to be far closer than they were ever before, and she could feel her throat start to close up.

Trying to distract herself she explained things to Mona and Charlie, who took everything more or less in strides. It was impossible to have lived in this city for four years and not understand that this was only a small emergency, barely a blip on the radar. But they both looked at her with mild concern and she knew they were aware that her claustrophobia was rearing its head. 

Mona suggested playing a game while waiting things out and the other two humored her, it wasn't like there was anything else to do. Apparently communication with the other parts of the city was also cut off – again, Zari made the mental note to correct that later – so they could only hope that the med bay was dealing with whatever contagion it was and whoever was in the control room was able to contain whatever this was in the med bay so that other parts of the city would be able to be opened again.

Except there was something gnawing at the back of Zari's brain, an information she hadn't given much thought to. After their third round of 'I spy', it suddenly hit her: what she had assumed to be failures in programming on her part had to be malfunctions. That the computer wasn't accessible on its own could have been an oversight, as could have been the lack of communication, but both? That was highly unlikely and she should have thought about that immediately. 

Getting up quickly and going back to her computer, she ignored the questions of her friends and instead pulled up the programs she was able to access from here. Which thankfully included the sensors, giving her the ability to check for any unusual or unknown airborne particles or contagions. There were none. 

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit."

"Just let it out, mate, it'll make you feel better."

She turned around to see Charlie looking at her encouragingly while Mona frowned, clearly confused.

"There are no airborne toxins or any unknown or unusual particles being detected. There is no contagion. This is a malfunction in the program I wrote. Damn."

Charlie shrugged, and Mona didn't look much less confused. 

"That is good though, isn't it? They're going to realize it's just a malfunction and fix it and then we can get out of here."

"Yes, in theory. But in practice, I build safety protocols upon safety protocols, there is no way they're going to be able to crack the system. Not without a substantial amount of time at least."

"How much time?"

"Hours. Many, many hours. Probably days."

Mona blanched at this and even Charlie looked taken aback. 

"Days?"

Zari scoffed sarcastically. That's what she got for making sure to design an unhackable system. Of course, the city had been subject to hostile takeovers too many times to want to leave anything to chance, but that didn't help in this specific scenario.

"Okay, we just need to stay calm. Think about our options."

Another scoff. Of course, Mona would try to make the best out of even this hopeless situation.

"There are no options. The doors are hermetically sealed. Nothing can get through, not even air. There's no other exits."

Refusing to lose her usual optimism, Mona looked around.

"What about the windows?"

Zari followed her gaze. 

"Yeah, sure, you could break it I guess but we're several miles above ground and the control room is even further up. It's not humanly possible to get there."

This seemed to get Mona an idea because her face lit up suddenly and she looked at Charlie, who didn't seem to realize what she up to.

"But we're not all humans, are we?"

Now it clicked, and Charlie's face lit up too.

"Oh. Right. Sure, I could shift into a bird or something and fly up there. No problem."

Zari shook her head. This was not a bad idea in theory, but there was a problem.

"It wouldn't help anything for you to be up there. I can't talk you through it if we don't have communication and without knowing where exactly the malfunction occurred, I can't tell you what to fix even if I give you my access codes and everything. It has to be me."

There was silence for a few moments, all of them thinking hard.

"Okay, then, Charlie could change into a really big bird. Like an eagle. Or a vulture. Something that could carry you."

This time it was Charlie who shook her head. 

"Even the largest bird would not be able to carry a human. That's simply not possible."

"But maybe it doesn't have to be a bird. You don't have to shift into existing creatures, right? What about like a dinosaur? A Pteradonton? Or whatever they're called."

"Pteranodon."

Zari automatically corrected Mona, her mind too busy with what she was implying.

"Right! That one! Isn't that big enough to carry a human?"

Charlie seemed to contemplate that and then shrugged. 

"I assume it would be, yes. I did shift into dinosaurs before, just for fun."

"Really?"

"Sure. Into all kinds of fantastic creatures too, like phoenixes and a hydra once. That was not all that fun though. Too many heads."

"Wow! That's so cool!"

Zari couldn't help but smile at Mona's enthusiasm but she tried to stay on topic. Which currently apparently was being carried by a dinosaur from one closed room to another, several miles above ground. Great.

"That sounds like a good idea. As much as I'm not super thrilled about being carried in claws, I guess it beats having to stay here for possibly days."

Charlie shrugged.

"I'm with you there, mate."

Picturing being carried by a giant dinosaur, but getting sidetracked by what Mona and Charlie were talking about right now, she suddenly thought of something.

"Wait, if you can shift into fantasy creatures, what about a Pegasus? Those winged horses? I'd much rather ride on a horse up there than be carried by a dinosaur."

Charlie shrugged again.

"Sure. Not a problem. It's probably easier anyways, because a dinosaur can't really fold in it's wings and for it to be big enough to carry you, it would probably have a hard time fitting into this room. As a Pegasus, I can keep my wings folded until we're outside."

"Outside? As in already in the air? As in falling?"

Now, Charlie smirked.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to let you fall. There should be time to gain enough speed and velocity to fly up when I unfold my wings right after stepping out."

"Should?"

Yet another shrug. 

"It's out best bet, right? I can try to rear up when standing right by the window and keep my hind hooves on the floor while already unfolding my wings outside, it'll be tricky with you on my back but I'm sure I can manage."

Zari was not at all that sure, but Charlie was right, it was their best bet, if they didn't want to find out the hard way that the room was too small for a dinosaur after all. So she squared her shoulders. 

"Alright. Let's do this. How do we break the window? Can you just break it with your hooves?"

"Sure. I just need to be careful about shards of glass flying. As you know, I don't retain injuries from a different form, but that doesn't mean they don't hurt."

"I can break it with a chair or something."

"Nah, that risks you getting injured and you can't shift out of it. Better I do it."

"Right. Okay. So, yeah."

She gestured with her hand and Charlie grinned, gesturing in turn to the desk and the bed. Zari understood and together they moved the furniture out of the way so that there was as big a space as possible by the window.

"Once I'm shifted, stay as far away as possible until after I broke the glass and shook off any shards. Then you can climb on my back, if it's too high, I don't know, use a stool or something."

"Alright."

Nodding towards both of them, Charlie stood in the middle of the empty space and started the shifting process. It was always impressive, but this time even more so, because so far, Zari had only seen them shift into humans, not anything else. And she hadn't expected it to look so… majestic for lack of a better word. 

Where Charlie had been standing a few seconds before was now a truly impressive shining white horse, so big it barely fit into the room, with beautiful, rainbow colored wings that were immense even when folded.

"Wow! That's amazing!"

Sharing Mona's sentiment, Zari just nodded but had the sense to gesture towards the wall behind her for both of them to get even further away when Charlie stepped towards the window, which was thankfully huge, covering the entire length of the wall and wide enough for her to comfortably fit through, and reared up, tapping the window first relatively gently and when it didn't budge stepping back again and this time coming at it with much more force, but still being careful about not shattering it too much, to minimize shards flying.

There were some still, when the window shattered, but none of them reached Zari and Mona and when Charlie had shaken the remaining ones off she looked towards Zari, nodding her enormous head down once as a sign that she was ready. 

Carefully, Zari approached her, patting her back a little to see if any shards still remained. There were none, so she put her hand into Charlie's mane, feeling a little weird about this whole thing. But Mona brought her a stool, smiling encouragingly and Zari stepped on it and swung her leg over Charlie's back. 

It was as comfortable as it could get she assumed and she held on to the mane as best as she could, crouching low on Charlie's back to make sure she wouldn't fall off. 

"Ready! Mona, stand back."

"Good luck!"

"Thanks. I still think we probably need it." That earned her a little shake of the Pegasus' head, and she chuckled. "Well, here goes nothing!"

It was a shock to say it mildly when Charlie suddenly seemed to go from zero to a hundred and all Zari could do was cling on for dear life. She barely even registered when Charlie was out of the window, rearing up and unfolding her wings because every single movement was so new and weird to her that she didn't even have much time to be nervous about whether there would be enough time for Charlie to gain momentum in the air.

Clearly there was, because a second later they were soaring through the air, Charlie at first flying in a straight line forwards but soon gaining enough confidence to circle back and fly upwards, towards the control room balcony. 

Once there, they landed, very softly and gracefully, which Zari was thankful for. The whole journey had probably only taken them a few seconds, but it felt like a far longer amount of time to her. Her stomach had turned upside down and her entire body was shaking, her legs seemed to be made of jelly. 

Trying to shake it off, she slid off of Charlie's back, not at all gracefully, but at least she didn't simply fall off. She tried to look into the control room but it was hard with the sun reflecting from the glass. Still, she made a few gestures that clearly communicated 'stay away from the window' – or at least she hoped it was clear – and then she nodded encouragingly to Charlie, who just reared their head at her, not doing anything.

"What?" She didn't understand at first but then realized that she was standing far to close to the window. "Oh. Right. I'll just be… over here."

She stepped back as far as possible towards the balcony railing and once they deemed her far enough, Charlie stepped towards the window and broke it, this time already knowing how much force they needed to apply. Shaking off all the shards they stepped into the control room with folded wings, clearly wanting to show off their Pegasus form.

Zari followed them, smiling when she heard the enthusiastic shouts from the room, the loudest from Ava and Sara. 

"Finally!"

"Charlie, Zari, there you are, see, I told you they'd figure it out, pay up!"

Rolling her eyes but still smiling Zari watched as Sara looked at Ava with her hand in a clear gesture of someone who expects to get money. Of course they would bet on them coming here. What else did she expect? But then Ava shook her head.

"Oh no, you bet that Charlie would turn into a flying dinosaur. That's not a dinosaur. So, I won. You pay up!"

The look of shock on Sara's face made Zari chuckle even when she was starting to make her way towards the main computer, realizing that she really needed to get on with the reason why they came here in the first place, trying to ignore the fact that her legs still felt like wobbly marshmallows. From behind her she could hear the bickering continue with Charlie – who clearly had changed back – chiming in, coming to Sara's aid by saying a dinosaur had been the first idea but then Zari had come up with a Pegasus. 

Looking up sharply at that, Zari hissed a little "Traitor!" towards Charlie, which they just shrugged off, grinning. Zari shook her head but a smile was playing on her lips. 

"Whatever, a real Pegasus in the Pegasus galaxy, that's much cooler anyways, I should have thought of that myself."

Sara seemed to have relented but Zari was too concentrated on fixing the problem to pay much attention. Finally, she was able to find the mistake in the program and shut off the lockdown protocol. When the doors opened, everyone cheered and she received multiple hugs and pats on the shoulder. 

Locking eyes with Charlie, she nodded gratefully to see them grinning at her and couldn't help but grin back, widely.


End file.
